Artemis II astronauts make long-distance call to the space station as they head home from the moon

HOUSTON (AP) — Still aglow from their triumphant lunar flyby, the Artemis II astronauts made more history Tuesday: calling their friends aboard the International Space Station hundreds of thousands of miles away as they headed home from the moon.

It was the first moonship-to-spaceship radio linkup ever. NASA's Apollo crews had no off-the-planet company back in the 1960s and 1970s, the last time humanity set sail for deep space.

"We have been waiting for this like you can’t imagine,” Artemis II commander Reid Wiseman called out.

For Christina Koch on Artemis II and Jessica Meir aboard the space station, it marked a joyous space reunion despite being 230,000 miles (370,000 kilometers) apart. The two teamed up for the world's first all-female spacewalk in 2019 outside the orbiting lab.

The Latest: Artemis II astronauts reach orbit on historic mission to the moon and back

Four astronauts embarked on a high-stakes flight around the moon Wednesday, humanity’s first lunar voyage in more than half a century and the thrilling leadoff in NASA’s push toward a landing in two years.

NASA's launch team loaded more than 700,000 gallons of fuel into the 32-story Space Launch System rocket early Wednesday, setting the stage for blast off in the evening at Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

Artemis astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch and Jeremy Hansen are on board. They’ll hurtle several thousand miles beyond the moon, hang a U-turn and then come straight back. No circling around the moon, no stopping for a moonwalk — just a quick out-and-back lasting less than 10 days. NASA promises more boot prints in the gray lunar dust, but not before a couple practice missions.

Unlike the Apollo missions that sent astronauts to the moon from 1968 through 1972, Artemis’ debut crew includes a woman, a person of color and a Canadian citizen.

‘Neighbours hating each other’: Proposed Saskatchewan wind farm divides community

Don Bourassa says a proposed wind farm near his home in southeast Saskatchewan has ruined relationships in his community — to the point where he feels he has been bullied.

A resident of the Rural Municipality of Weyburn, Bourassa said one of his neighbours approached him about buying his property to keep him quiet on Enbridge's Seven Stars Energy Project.

"He wants me out of there, to shut up," Bourassa said in an interview. "That's bullying and I'm not falling for that.

“It’s neighbours hating each other."

‘Fly WestJet, see a UFO’

The truth is out there — or at least it could be outside the cockpit of a WestJet flight.

In an incident reported by NAV Canada to Transport Canada on Friday, WestJet pilots had reported they had flown by “a basketball-sized object at 13,000 feet” during a flight from Winnipeg to Calgary on Jan. 19.

The pilots, of flight WJA485, were flying just northwest of Canmore at the time and descending to land in Calgary when the incident occurred.

NAV Canada has classified the incident, under occurrence event information, as a “weather balloon, meteor, rocket, CIRVIS/UFO.” CIRVIS stands for Communications Instructions for Reporting Vital Intelligence Sightings.

Meteorite hunters scour Ohio for fragments of 7-ton space rock that crashed into Earth

MEDINA, Ohio (AP) — Meteorite hunters fanned out across a wide swath of Ohio on Thursday, hoping to collect fragments of an estimated 7-ton (6,350 kilograms) space rock that crashed into Earth this week after a dazzling fireball that was seen from hundreds of miles away.

The meteoroid broke apart around 9 a.m. Tuesday over Valley City, a half-hour south of Cleveland, after it sped through the atmosphere at about 45,000 miles (72,420 kilometers) per hour. It caused a sonic boom that rattled buildings and caused fears of an explosion. The fireball was seen from Wisconsin to Maryland, and NASA confirmed it was a meteoroid nearly 6 feet (1.8 meters) in diameter.

Medina resident December Harris didn’t have to go looking — her cousin and roommate, Ambra Sinclair, found a small black rock they suspect is a meteorite when she was leaving for work. They had heard the sonic boom Tuesday morning but figured it might have been noise from a nearby airport.

Harris said her roommate found the rock in a 4-foot (1.2-meter) area between the garage and the house late Wednesday morning. She described it as somewhat triangular shaped, less than 2 inches (5 centimeters) in diameter — and “very, very black,” with pits on the surface, grooves and a melted texture on its exterior.

Oldest known whale recording could unlock mysteries of the ocean

A haunting whale song discovered on decades-old audio equipment could open up a new understanding of how the huge animals communicate, according to researchers who say it’s the oldest such recording known.

Speed limits and safety — follow the science

The premier of Manitoba recently appeared hesitant about collaborating with Winnipeg City Council on a public works proposal to lower the city’s default residential speed limit from 50 km/h to 40 km/h. Without a provincial amendment to the Highway Traffic Act, the city says implementing the change would require installing signs on hundreds of streets, at a cost of up to $10 million to taxpayers.

NASA clears its Artemis moon rocket for an April launch with four astronauts following repairs

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — NASA cleared its moon rocket on Thursday for an April launch with four astronauts after completing the latest round of repairs.

The 322-foot (98-meter) rocket will roll out of the hangar and back to the pad next week at Florida's Kennedy Space Center, leading to a launch attempt as early as April 1. It will mark humanity's first trip to the moon in more than 50 years.

The Artemis II crew should have blasted off on a lunar flyaround earlier this year, but fuel leaks and other problems with the Space Launch System rocket interfered.

Although NASA managed to plug the hydrogen fuel leaks at the pad in February, a helium-flow issue forced the space agency to return the rocket to the Vehicle Assembly Building for repairs, bumping the mission to April.

Spacecraft’s impact changed asteroid’s orbit around the sun in a save-the-Earth test, study finds

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — An asteroid that NASA used for target practice a few years ago was nudged into a slightly different route around the sun, findings that could help divert a future incoming killer space rock, scientists reported Friday.

It’s the first time that a celestial body’s orbit around the sun was deliberately changed. The asteroid that NASA's Dart spacecraft slammed into was never a threat to Earth.

“This study marks a notable step forward in our ability to prevent future asteroid impacts on Earth,” the international research team wrote in Science Advances.

The changes were slight — reductions of just one-tenth of a second and one-half of a mile (720 meters) to a solar lap spanning two years and hundreds of millions of miles (kilometers), according to the scientists.

New football chinstrap designed to lessen force of blows to facemask

Erin Hanson wants to make taking it on the chin in football much safer in Canada.

Guardian Sports officially launched the Guardian Flex chinstrap on Thursday for individual and team sale, with the CFL being among the leagues to have reviewed the item. The product has been engineered to reduce the impact of blows to the facemask.

According to the company, the chinstrap reduces Head Acceleration Response Metric (HARM) scores by up to 35 per cent and targets facemask impacts, which research suggests account for about half of all hits and are an area where traditional helmets underperform.

The chinstrap will be far less noticeable to fans than the Atlanta-based company’s Guardian Cap. Introduced 14 years ago, the soft padded shell fits over a football helmet and is secured by elastic straps attached to the facemask.

City report recommends reducing residential speed limit to 40 km/h

Winnipeg drivers may have to ease up on the gas pedal when they head down residential streets and minor collector roads.

The City of Winnipeg is looking at making the default speed limit 40 km/h, from the current 50 km/h.

A report to be presented to the public works committee next week suggests the change could improve safety for pedestrians, cyclists and others.

Committee chair Coun. Janice Lukes says she supports the recommendation, but stressed amendments to the provincial Highway Traffic Act are required before it could take effect.

The surprising complexity behind the squeak of basketball shoes on hardwood floors

NEW YORK (AP) — As he watched the Boston Celtics play from the stands of TD Garden, one noise kept catching Adel Djellouli's ear.

“This squeaking sound when players are sliding on the floor is omnipresent,” he said. “It’s always there, right?”

Squeaky shoes are part of the symphony of a basketball game, when rubber soles rasp against the hardwood floors as players jab step, cut and pivot and defenders move their feet to stay in front of their assignment.

Returning home from the game, Djellouli wondered how that sound was produced. And as a materials scientist at Harvard University, he had a way to find out.

More Canadian athletes powered by artificial intelligence at Winter Games

Just for fun, Xavier McKeever and his cross-country ski teammates once tasked ChatGPT to design a training plan for them.

"It was the craziest training plan we've ever seen," said the 22-year-old from Canmore, Alta.

"It basically said you should do intensity every single day. You should do three hours of skiing and then an hour of intensity, and repeat that a few times -- and then you should take a week off completely. We know you can't do that.

"It was pretty funny to see and do, to see Chat GPT can't write a training plan, and that we need our coaching to help us with that."

Three scientists at US universities win Nobel Prize in physics for advancing quantum technology

STOCKHOLM (AP) — Three scientists won the Nobel Prize in physics Tuesday for research on the strange behavior of subatomic particles called quantum tunneling that enabled the ultra-sensitive measurements achieved by MRI machines and laid the groundwork for better cellphones and faster computers.

The work by John Clarke, Michel H. Devoret and John M. Martinis, who work at American universities, took the seeming contradictions of the subatomic world — where light can be both a wave and a particle and parts of atoms can tunnel through seemingly impenetrable barriers — and applied them in the more traditional physics of digital devices. The results of their findings are just starting to appear in advanced technology and could pave the way for the development of supercharged computing.

The prizewinning research in the mid-1980s took the subatomic “weirdness of quantum mechanics” and found how those tiny interactions can have real-world applications, said Jonathan Bagger, CEO of the American Physical Society. The experiments were a crucial building block in the fast-developing world of quantum mechanics.

Speaking from his cellphone, Clarke, who spearheaded the research team, said: “One of the underlying reasons that cellphones work is because of all this work."

Ski jumper Mackenzie Boyd-Clowes takes to the air again for Canada

CALGARY - Mackenzie Boyd-Clowes has returned to ski jumping after a hiatus of two and a half years.

Boyd-Clowes laid down Canada's final jump of the mixed team event at the 2022 Winter Games for bronze and the country's first ever Olympic medal in the sport.

The four-time Olympian is back in the air again. Boyd-Clowes competed in a pair of September competitions and provisionally qualified for the 2026 Winter Games in Milan and Cortina, Italy.

"It's new and fresh and exciting. I took a long break and wasn't sure whether I would jump again and now I'm doing it," Boyd-Clowes said.

Le centre d’interprétation Saint-Léon: là où souffle l’esprit de la nature et de l’innovation

Avec ses galeries interactives, ses sentiers en pleine nature et son riche contenu éducatif, le Centre d’interprétation Saint-Léon est bien plus qu’un simple musée rural. En 2025, la communauté célèbre les 20 ans du premier parc éolien du Manitoba — une réalisation marquante racontée au cœur du Centre. Entre salamandres mystérieuses, énergies vertes et oiseaux migrateurs, les visiteurs y découvrent un territoire où science, nature et fierté locale se rencontrent.

Situé près du lac Saint-Léon, le Centre d’interprétation Saint-Léon a toujours eu pour vocation d’éduquer les curieux, qu’ils soient touristes ou de la région, mais aussi de rassurer. Lorraine Mabon, la présidente, raconte:

“Le but original, c’était de parler des salamandres et de leur rôle, parce qu’il y en avait énormément dans la région et les gens en avaient un peu peur. Mais les salamandres, qu’on trouve sur les terres humides, sont une bonne chose: elles sont indicatrices de la bonne santé de l’environnement.

“Un autre fait intéressant, c’est que si elles perdent un membre, elles peuvent le régénérer! Beaucoup de scientifiques étudient cette faculté exceptionnelle.”

FAA demands an accident investigation into SpaceX’s latest out-of-control Starship flight

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — The Federal Aviation Administration is demanding an accident investigation into this week’s out-of-control Starship flight by SpaceX.

Tuesday's test flight from Texas lasted longer than the previous two failed demos of the world's biggest and most powerful rocket, which ended in flames over the Atlantic. The latest spacecraft made it halfway around the world to the Indian Ocean, but not before going into a spin and breaking apart.

The FAA said Friday that no injuries or public damage were reported.

The first-stage booster — recycled from an earlier flight — also burst apart while descending over the Gulf of Mexico. But that was the result of deliberately extreme testing approved by the FAA in advance.

Alexander Zverev says lightning struck his flight to Paris for the French Open

PARIS (AP) — German tennis player Alexander Zverev said Friday his plane was hit lightning on the way to Paris for the French Open and had to turn around, delaying his arrival for the clay-court Grand Slam tournament.

He wound up getting in at about 3 a.m.

“We were supposed to fly yesterday evening at 6:45 p.m., and we took off from Hamburg,” said Zverev, last year's runner-up at Roland-Garros and seeded No. 3 this year. “We got struck by lightning. We had to do an emergency landing back in Hamburg.”

By the time he got on a different flight, his journey resumed at 1 a.m.

Winnipeg teen representing Canada at World Amateur Long Drive Championship

A Winnipeg teen known for her prowess on the tee box will be launching bombs on behalf of Canada next month in Chicago.

Hannah Penner, 18, will don the red and white as part of a contingent of 20 golfers set to represent the nation at the 2021 World Amateur Long Drive Championship, set for Sept. 11-19.

She's headed to the Windy City but doesn't require a strong breeze at her back to routinely crush the ball well over 250 yards or, occasionally, eclipse the 300-yard mark.

Penner, one of four women in the group, said she's thrilled about the chance to compete against others with the same unique skillset.

Locals find loophole in laws of physics

A University of Winnipeg scientist leads an international team of researchers who may have found a loophole in the laws of physics.

Magnetricity could have practical applications down the road to store data in computers or conduct electricity, said U of W chemistry Prof. Chris Wiebe.

"All of magnetic (knowledge) is based on 'You can't have a single pole,' " explained Wiebe, a graduate of the U of W and Transcona Collegiate. There is always a north pole and a south pole, and a single pole cannot occur naturally.

So say the laws of physics, but...

Meteor as heavy as an elephant causes widespread speculation across New England

When the double boom rang out in New England over the weekend, shaking homes and sending pets fleeing, questions started flooding social media.

“Did anyone else hear that boom?”

“Anyone feel that?”

NASA let people know over the weekend that the cause of the commotion was a meteor, but on Monday they revealed even more stunning details.

‘Letting it rip’: Beyblade fanatics are giving childhood craze another spin

RICHMOND -

At Imperial Hobbies in Richmond, B.C., the air is filled with the sounds of battle.

"Three, two, one — shoot!"

The combatants unleash their weapons, setting off high-pitched whirring, and clashes of plastic and metal.

In praise of the deliberately slower lane

Before I begin this story, I should first confess that I once suffered from a serious affliction — that nasty urban disease known as road rage.

‘Extraordinary’: Back on Earth, Jeremy Hansen describes his long journey in space

HOUSTON - When Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen first floated to the window after the Orion capsule's bone-rattling launch into space early this month, what he saw and felt left him grasping for words.

He saw the sweep of the ocean first, and then, drifting into view, the rich, dusty red of Australia. And behind it all was the vastness of space, with the edge of Earth's atmosphere shining like a bubble of blue glass in the black.

"It was pretty extraordinary," Hansen told The Canadian Press at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston Thursday.

The enormity of what Hansen and his Artemis II crewmates experienced is still settling in a week after they returned to Earth, splashing into the Pacific Ocean following a 10-day lunar fly-around.